How Republicans came to embrace anti-environmentalism

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt is now out, brought down by a cascade of personal indiscretions. But with former coal lobbyist Andrew Wheeler soon to be at the helm of the EPA, President Donald Trump’s U-turn on the environment shows no signs of stopping.

A couple of years ago, the US was making notable progress on some of our toughest environmental problems. Grassroots mobilizations and other forms of pressure helped nudge America’s political leadership to halt pipelines and craft new policies on climate change, fracking, and toxics. The rest of the world, even China, was coalescing around a commitment to curb greenhouse gases, and the Paris accord had been signed into effect.

Pruitt’s stint at the EPA’s helm has changed much of that. He’s spent a year and a half in pursuit of, as former White House strategist Steven Bannon put it, the “deconstruction of the administrative state.” The ax has already fallen on the Paris agreement and agency morale, and hangs in mid-swing over much else of the EPA’s established work, from Obama’s climate policies to its use of science to enforcement.